History of “Everything” Outline

“ Welcome. And congratulations. I am delighted that you could make it. Getting
here wasn’t easy, I know. In fact, I suspect it was a little tougher than you realize. To begin with,
for you to be here now trillions of drifting atoms had somehow to assemble in an intricate and
intriguingly obliging manner to create you. It’s an arrangement so specialized and particular that
it has never been tried before and will only exist this once. For the next many years (we hope)
these tiny particles will uncomplainingly engage in all the billions of deft, cooperative efforts
necessary to keep you intact and let you experience the supremely agreeable but generally
underappreciated state known as existence.”

–Bill Bryson (A Short History of Nearly Everything)

Note from the presenter: I am of course not claiming to truly incorporate EVERY thing, nor do I
purport that this lecture boils all history down to the “most important” things. But I do hope it
gets you thinking on a grander scale than you are accustomed. For some of you it may feel quite
liberating. For others, it may truly challenge your current world view—but be sure to embrace
the challenge. Furthermore, I am under no delusion that I myself have all the answers, that I
understand all of history. It is important to note that I indeed do not even fully comprehend all
the material I am presenting today. In fact, much of it is inherently beyond full human
comprehension! Rather, I chose to embark on a project like this not only to educate others, but to
help fill in my own gaps of knowledge and understanding. The truth is I could go the rest of my
life and never come close to a “full” appreciation of everything. The universe is an
incomprehensibly grand place the human mind was never built to fathom in its entirety.

Why? Why attempt to tell the story of our entire universe in a single lecture?! This is a fair
question so I give the following reasons:
A) It is something I am intensely interested in and I suspect others are as well.
B) I believe it is important in a general sense, and growing more so, as “big thinking”
principals are used to a greater degree in our socioeconomic landscape.
C) Students spend the vast majority of their time in schools compartmentalizing information.
This is a chance to put all of it together and see how everything is connected.
Big Lesson 1: The universe is knowable.
Big Lesson 2: Science is under no obligation to be congruent with your intuition.
“Our Commonsense intuitions can be mistaken. Our preferences don’t count. We do not live in a
privileged reference frame.”
-Carl Sagan

B = Billion, M = Million, YA = Years Ago, LY = Light Year

T = Average temperature of the universe, d = diameter of the universe
In the Beginning…
“It is natural but wrong to visualize the singularity as a kind of pregnant dot hanging in a
dark, boundless void. But there is no space, no darkness. The singularity has no ‘around’ around
it. There is no space for it to occupy, no place for it to be. We can’t even ask how long it has been
there—whether it has just lately popped into being, like a good idea, or whether it has been there
forever, quietly awaiting the right moment. Time doesn’t exist. There is no past for it to emerge
from. And so, from nothing, our universe begins.”
–Bill Bryson (A Short History of Nearly Everything)

• Big Bang: t = 0
• CosmologistsW organize the events that have taken place (and those that will take
place in the future) into epochs of time.
▪ Planck Epoch (Era): t = 0 to t ~ 10-43 s
• All forces have the same magnitude (may be the same fundamental
force). Physics uncertain (need quantum theory of gravity).
o T = 1032 K (Planck TemperatureW )
o d = 10-35 m (Planck Length)

B = Billion, M = Million, YA = Years Ago, LY = Light Year

T = Average temperature of the universe, d = diameter of the universe
 • The First Second: Universe immediately began to cool and rapidly grow in size.
▪ Grand Unification Epoch: t = 10-43 s to 10-36 s
• Gravity splits from unified forces.
• Earliest elementary particles created.
▪ Inflationary Epoch: t = 10-36 s to 10-32 s
▪ Strong nuclear force separates from unified forces. This causes rapid
expansion.
o d ~ 10 cm
• Electroweak Epoch: t = 10-32 s to 10-12 s
▪ W, Z, and Higgs bosons created. The Higgs field gives particles their
mass.
• Quark Epoch: t = 10-12 s to 10-6 s
▪ Quarks and leptons (which include electrons) form—becoming the
basic building blocks of all matter today (E = mC2).
▪ At 10-11 seconds fundamental forces were fully separated (Strong >
Weak > Electromagnetic > Gravity).
▪ Matter and Antimatter duked it out. Matter won… Barely!! Don’t
know whyW .
o T = 1012 K
o d=?
• Hadron Epoch: t = 10-6 s to 1 s
▪ Quarks (which include electrons) and gluons interacted to form the
first hadrons (including protons and neutrons). It was a real Doctor
Seuss Melting Pot! You can learn more about the subatomic world
by studying the standard model of particle physics. First Proton was
probably formed around 100 microseconds after the big bang.
o T = 1010 K
• Minutes to hundreds of millennia:
• Lepton Epoch: t = 1 s to 3 min
▪ By 100 s all protons and neutrons had been formed.
o T = 109 K
• Photon Epoch: t = 3 min to t = 240,000 y
▪ Nucleosynthesis: t = 3 min to t = 20 min
• Temperature became cool enough for collisions between
protons and neutrons to result in the formation of nuclei (H,
He, and Li).
• However, by 20 min the temperature and density were no
longer sufficient for fusion to continue (stuck with H, He, &
a little Li for a while).
• Energy of universe dominated by photons.
o T = 107 K
• Recombination/Decoupling: t = 240,000 y to t = 400,000 y
B = Billion, M = Million, YA = Years Ago, LY = Light Year
T = Average temperature of the universe, d = diameter of the universe
 ▪ Surface of Last Scattering: Drastic reduction in interaction between
light and matter, as ionized nuclei capture electrons. Universe
becomes transparent and Cosmic Microwave Background (CBM)
radiation is produced.
▪ Universal matter makeup: 75% H, 25% He, and trace Li.
• Millions to billions of years:
• Dark Era: t = 400,000 y to 100 MY
▪ Energy density and temperature had fallen dramatically, and as a
result the pace of change seemed to slow down quite a bit. The
universe was “dark” in that no visible light was around.
▪ Gravitational fluctuations started bringing bodies together…
• Reionization: t = 150 MY to 1 BY
▪ Dark matterW finally did enough work to bring enough matter
together so that quite interesting phenomena took place.
▪ As pockets of gas became denser, the first stars and galaxies began
to form.
▪ Also, the first badass giant bodies formed—quasars!

▪ Supermassive stars formed first and lived only millions to hundreds

of millions of years. Supernovas from these giant fusion reactors
created the heavier elements.

• 1 BY to 9 BY (5 BYA):
▪ Medium and smaller stars formed a little later (and burned/burn
much longer).
▪ Large volumes of matter continued to collapse, forming galaxies,
and clusters of galaxies, and clusters of clusters of galaxies
(superclusters)!
• Solar System Formation: 5 BYA

B = Billion, M = Million, YA = Years Ago, LY = Light Year

T = Average temperature of the universe, d = diameter of the universe
 ▪ Around 5 BYA enough matter in a particular region of space became
dense enough for the fusion of H into He to occur, and a new star
was born. The star (which would later become known as the sun by
speakers of 15th-21st century English) was small enough so as not to
consume its material too rapidly, but large enough to provide
sufficient energy to nearby planets. The photons emitted from the
fusion reaction would illuminate the surrounding debris now
orbiting the star—our solar system was born!
• Where did our sun originate from?
• 4.5 BYA to Present day:
• Formation of Earth: 4.5 BYA
▪ As the collision frequency with external debris in the early Earth’s
orbital path slowed down, Earth began to cool.
▪ Within millions of years oceans of liquid water made up 71% of the
surface.
▪ Due to Earth’s size considerable amounts of hydrogen escaped from
the early atmosphere. The atmosphere steadily became more
oxidizing (oxygen rich) but to the point we observe today.
• Life’s first appearance on Earth: 4.3 to 3.5 BYA
▪ Precambrian Eon: 3.8 BYA to 600 MYA
• How did it all begin?
• Prokaryotic cyanobacteriaW began emitting O2 into the
atmosphere.
o The cyanobacteria slowly caused the atmosphere to
transition into our oxygen-rich one 2.5 to 2 BYA.
o Eukaryotes first appeared at least 2.7 BYA.
▪ Phanerozoic Eon: 600 MYA to present day
• Paleozoic Era: 600 to 245 MYA
o Cambrian Explosion
o First vertabrates appear 550 MYA
• Mesozoic Era: 245 to 65 MYA
o Permian-Mass Extinction killed off 96% of marine
life.
o Cretaceous-Paleogene Extinction Event (asteroid
impact) killed the dinosaurs.
• Cenozoic Era: 65 MYA to present day
o Rise of mammals
o First anatomically modern humans: Around 200,000
YA.
o Oral communication became possible.

B = Billion, M = Million, YA = Years Ago, LY = Light Year

T = Average temperature of the universe, d = diameter of the universe
 o Collective learning became the mechanism by which
humans began to dominate their respective
ecosystems.
o Out of Africa about 100,000 YA.
o 50,000 YA, Ice Age. Humans spread to China and
Australia.
o Bering Land Bridge allows crossing from Asia to
North America.
o Hunter gatherer transition to agrarian societies 6,000
YA
o Modern civilizations emerged
o Political powers and great thinkers continually
shaped the course of human history
• Anthropocene? Humans are causing rapid environmental
change. Are we observing the transition into a new geologic
epoch?
Big Lesson 3: Humans are a relatively new creature, the latest in a long line of mammalian
predecessors.
Big Lesson 4: Our lives are incomprehensibly fleeting with respect to universal time scales.
Big Lesson 5: There is no reason to believe we live in a universe made specifically for our
liking.
“We have not been given the lead in the cosmic drama. Perhaps someone else has. Perhaps no
one else has. In either case, we have good reason for humility.”
-Carl Sagan

• Present day: Right now!

o T = 2.73 K
o d = 94 BLY (observable universeW )
• Tomorrow…
Recommendations for Further Intellectual Engagement:
I really hope you learned something (or a lot of somethings!) from this talk. However, do not be
disillusioned into thinking you now know everything! Challenge yourself to be a lifelong learner,
and QUESTION EVERYTHING—including your own beliefs. The following links will take you
to a diversity of sources that are great for stimulating your prefrontal cortex. Try some (or all), and
seek out others as well (this list is in no way comprehensive):
Frequently asked questions in cosmology.
Universe by the numbers.
Podcasts and Audiobooks:

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T = Average temperature of the universe, d = diameter of the universe
 • Big History Audiobook: Professor David Christian puts together an amazing series of
lectures, literally spanning the history of the entire universe! Download on Audible.com.
• Hardcore History: A blog, free podcast, and more. Dan Carlin is a master story teller and
engager of audiences. He brings an intensity to history you rarely see elsewhere.
• TED Radio Hour and/or TED Talks
• I Need My Space
•
Online Classes:
• Big History Project: A course inspired by David Christian and supported by Bill Gates.
• iTunesU: Any course you are interested in!
• World Science University: Free online courses (with cool interactive tools and animations)
taught by world renown scientists.
• The Great Courses
• Solar system to scale: https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/520617/invisible-oregon/
• Most impactful things you can do: https://80000hours.org/career-guide/world-
problems/?src=fb
Books:
• Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan
• Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil Degrasse Tyson
• The Greatest Story Ever Told so Far by Lawerence Krauss
• A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
• Undeniable by Bill Nye
• Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene
• A Brief History of Time by Steven Hawking

B = Billion, M = Million, YA = Years Ago, LY = Light Year

T = Average temperature of the universe, d = diameter of the universe